Shipping Minister Collins is blatantly misleading the Australian public on the issues of privatisation of government shipping and opening up the coasts to competition, the Federal Member for Bruce and Shadow Minister for Privatisation, Julian Beale, said today.

Minister Collins claims that proper safety standards cannot be maintained if more competition and private sector

participation is introduced in line with Coalition policy.

The crystal clear fact is that the monitoring and policing of safety standards is controlled by his own Department.

What Minister Collins is saying is that the Government cannot trust his Department's inspection officers to do their job.

The Public Service Unions must take this attack on their members up with the Minister.

Senator Collins allegations about rustbuckets coming to dominate the trade is a shameless attack on the efficiency of his own Departmental officers.

Senator Collins is directly responsible to the public for maritime safety standards. If he cannot enforce safety standards he should resign from the job.

The fact is that every Australian family will benefit from increased competition on our waterfronts.

Both export costs and import costs will decrease as Senator Collins gets out of the way.

Misleading statomanto about his responsibilities have been a feature of Senator Collins' Ministry.

If he has no confidence in his ability to enforce safety standards he should resign.